Gov. Andrew Cuomo checks his watch as he arrives for a news conference in the Red Room at the Capitol Wednesday night to announce a tentative budget agreement among state leaders.

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| A Journal News editorial

Middle-class parents may be pondering all they can purchase with a newly promised $350 check courtesy of their state government leaders - theater tickets, take-out pizza night instead of pasta night, new shoes for the kids. It is a simpler exercise wondering what state legislators and governor hope to buy: The checks hit their constituents' mailboxes in 2014 - an election year.

The "family rebate" will certainly come in handy to Lower Hudson Valley families, who pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation. While earlier rebate talk focused on homeowners, the deal struck Wednesday ...